Japan Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant blog
Tracking Fukushima news from day 1 : | Now one of the world's largest Public Available Repositories of the Chronology of the Daiichi Nuclear ongoing Disaster.
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Tuesday, 25 February 2014

[snip]

AFP Photo/Johannes Eisele

About one week after a leak resulted in record levels of radiation near the
United States’ first nuclear waste depository, more airborne radiation has been
detected, according to the Associated Press.
The latest readings were confirmed on Monday by the US Department of Energy,
which stated that multiple air tracking stations around the Waste Isolation
Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico, are monitoring the situation.

Earlier this month, a sharp rise in radiation levels forced WIPP managers to
suspend operations at the plant. As RT noted previously, the WIPP is one of
three deep nuclear repositories in the world, storing leftover radioactive
material 600 meters underground. The cause of the initial spike was linked to a
leak inside one of the underground salt tunnels that holds nuclear waste.

Despite the leak, officials said that no employees were underground when the
alarm sounded, and no one’s health had been harmed. They added that radiation
levels were still significantly below those outlined by Environmental Protection
Agency’s safety standards. Even with the new radiation readings, officials said
there was no threat to the public.[end snip]FULL ARTICLE:

[snip]

Remember That Nuclear Dump Site That 'Was Never Supposed to Leak'?

Nation's only underground nuclear waste storage site, located in New Mexico, believed to be leaking radiation into air

- Sarah Lazare, staff writer

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant pictured December 2004 (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons)A leak at the only underground nuclear waste dump in the United States is now believed to be releasing radiation into the air, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced Monday, sparking alarm among residents near the southeastern New Mexico site.

"There's been radioactivity from nuclear waste released on the surface into the environment," said Don Hancock, Director of the Nuclear Waste Program at the Southwest Research and Information Center, in an interview with Common Dreams. "This was never supposed to happen. That's a very serious thing. We don't know yet what caused this release, or how much has been released."

Samples taken near the federally-run Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), 25 miles east of the town of Carlsbad, showed "slightly elevated levels of airborne radioactive concentrations, which are consistent with the waste disposed," according to the DOE.

"There is an awful lot more that should be known before we can assess the risk. The DOE has a long history of playing keep-away with the facts and promoting nuclear power."—Arnie Gundersen, nuclear expert

WIPP holds plutonium-contaminated military waste, generated by nuclear weapons production across the United States, including Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico. The waste is stored deep beneath the earth's surface in salt formations.

New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynnstated last week, “Events like this simply should never occur. From the state’s perspective, one event is far too many.”

Residents have long complained that WIPP, as well as nuclear waste transport across the state, put local communities at risk, including the Native American reservations, school districts, and highways the waste passes through en route to the repository. Tewa Women United, an indigenous organization based in northern New Mexico, slams the "negative impacts that pollution and nuclear contamination have on our bodies, minds, spirits, lands, air and water" in a statement on their website.

Session Two: THE MEDICAL AND ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES continuedMarek Niedziela, Department of Pediatrics, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poland (videotape)Thyroid Pathology in Children with Particular Reference to Chernobyl and Fukushima

David Brenner, Center for Radiological Research, College of Physicians and Surgeons. Columbia University,Living with Uncertainty About Low Dose Radiation Risks

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Tokyo Press Conference: "Deliberate cover-up" of public's exposure to Fukushima radiation and the health problems they are suffering from... This is now Japan's biggest problem — "Continual, purposeful concealment of facts" — "Media will not properly report" what's going on (VIDEO)http://enenews.com/tokyo-press-confer...

Govt. to ensure TEPCO reviews steps against leaksThe Japanese government says the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant needs to review its measures to prevent radioactive water leaks.Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga spoke to reporters on Monday after it was revealed that about 100 tons of highly radioactive water had leaked from a tank near the No. 4 reactor building last week.

Water leak may be due to workers' mistakeThe operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says the latest spill of radioactive water from a mountainside tank may have been caused by worker error.

LA Times: Top NRC official in Japan compared Fukushima to 'never-never land' — At same time, US warned France about publishing 'extremely high' radiation doses for infants in Tokyohttp://enenews.com/la-times-top-nrc-o...

US Gov't: Scientists investigating if Fukushima radiation contributed to unusual deaths and sickness in marine mammals — Similar illness seen in Japan and other countries on Pacific — Expect 'hairless seals' this springhttp://enenews.com/us-govt-scientists...

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(NaturalNews) In the three months following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which occurred back in March 2011, a land area larger than 20,000 square miles (mi2) became contaminated with high levels of radionuclides of both cesium and iodine, says a new European Commission report. Using the most realistic estimates in a mathematical model, scientists determined that as many as 43 million Japanese people, and perhaps even more, were exposed during that time to high levels of the two contaminants, which are still being spewed from the shuttered plant to this very day.

As explained in a Science for Environment Policy News Alert, the study calculated the atmospheric deposition of the two radionuclides using a widely respected circulation model and focused specifically on emissions in gaseous form. The study also took into account factors that might affect radionuclide concentrations upon dispersion, including precipitation, wind patterns, particle sedimentation and radioactive decay.

After crunching the numbers using relatively conservative estimates, the research team postulated that a land area measuring 34,000 square kilometers (km2), or about 13,000 mi2, was effectively contaminated with more than 40 kilobecquerels per square meter of the two radioactive substances. This level is considered by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be the threshold for what is considered to be "contamination."

Monday, 24 February 2014

"...For the first time, all Radiation Detectors in the nationwide "RADnet"
operated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are suddenly
"OFFLINE." Right now, this nation is completely, totally vulnerable to the
movement of radioactive materials into positions to enable an attack and we
would have no warning whatsoever. This is the perfect opportunity for a "dirty
bomb" attack or some type of "false flag" attack against ANYPLACE in the ENTIRE
United States.*** THIS STORY IS UPDATED BELOW AS OF MON. FEB. 24. ***

EPA is claiming there is a "technical glitch." No word on when -- or if --
RADnet will be operational again.

UPDATE: Monday, February 24, 2014 -- It now appears that the OFFLINE status of
the EPA "RADnet" may be **DELIBERATE.** According to sources in New Mexico, the
"RADnet" had to be shut down to conceal the leak of radiation from the Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carsbad, New Mexico, which is onlging and
presently spreading radiation into the air from its ventilation system. That
plant is the only location in the United States that receives, processes, then
stores (deep underground) radioactive materials from former nuclear warheads.

The WIPP suffered an "incident" on February 10, wherein radiation detectors at
the WIPP sounded an alarm that radiation was coming out of the ventilation
system. Within a brief time, the ventilation system went into "filtration mode"
to filter any air that was coming out of the underground storage area.

According to the POTRblog.com (POTR), a proven reliable source with inside
information on the internal happenings at the WIPP Plutonium disaster has
provided a radiation reading for Saturday 2/22/14, taken before and after HEPA
filtration of the exhaust air from the WIPP mine shaft. Based on that
information, and using risk mitigating assumptions, POTR calculated that
Plutonium and Americium are CURRENTLY being RELEASED INTO THE OUTSIDE AIR at a
rate of 400,000 Disintegrations Per Minute (DPM), for every single minute the
ventilation system is running. For those more comfortable with the Becquerel as
a unit of measure, that works out to the plant exhausting 6,667 Becquerels of
Plutonium and Americium PER MINUTE into the outside air...."

For the first time since the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant three years ago, the government is lifting an evacuation order in a restricted area, allowing residents to return to their homes.Residents of an eastern strip of the Miyakoji district of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, are being allowed to return as of April 1, the first day of the 2014 fiscal year, government officials said at a meeting Feb. 23. The area lies within 20 kilometers west of where the accident occurred.

One reason the government is rushing to lift evacuation orders for communities affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster is cost. Tokyo Electric Power Co., which is being lent money by the government’s Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund to compensate evacuees, is required to continue compensation one year after an evacuation order is lifted. Lifting the orders will hasten the end of those payments.According to the industry ministry, 1.5 trillion yen ($14.63 billion) has been paid in compensation to evacuees from 11 municipalities as of February.

In addition, decontamination costs will snowball if the government tries to achieve its long-term goal of lowering annual airborne radiation doses to 1 millisievert or less in areas where evacuation orders are in place.

A Reconstruction Agency official said it is unclear whether the long-term goal can be achieved even if the government continues decontamination work.

Prior to the Feb. 23 meeting, a senior Reconstruction Agency official asked Kazuyoshi Akaba, a senior vice industry minister, to explain the government’s policy to evacuees “even if it means rising to your full height and standing firm before residents.”

Akaba and Tamura Mayor Yukei Tomitsuka were tasked with explaining the new policy to the residents.During a previous meeting in October, Tomitsuka had proposed lifting the evacuation order by November, but residents complained, saying too much contamination remained.

Some evacuees requested additional decontamination work because the radiation levels remained above 1 millisievert in some areas. The government promised to deal with residents who are still worried about high radiation levels on a case-by-case basis.

“If this abnormal situation continues, residents will lose attachment to their hometown and the community will collapse,” Tomitsuka has said.

Takumi Nemoto, minister for reconstruction, has described fiscal 2014 as “the year in which Fukushima will make big moves,” voicing hope evacuees will begin returning to their homes.The government’s determination to lift the evacuation order for the Miyakoji district in the spring is an attempt to get the entire ball rolling.

Six other municipalities are considering lifting evacuation orders over the coming two years or so. That will affect nearly 30,000 evacuees who will have to decide whether they will return or not.One strategy the government has proposed to facilitate the return to the Miyakoji district is to open key prefectural roads and convenience stores as a way to improve living conditions there.“If we fail to gain an understanding after doing this much, it will be impossible to lift the evacuation order,” a senior Reconstruction Agency official said.

About 3,000 people left the Miyakoji district in the eastern part of Tamura after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The eastern tip of the Miyakoji district, which lies within a 20-kilometer radius of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, is designated as a zone that is being prepared for the lifting of the evacuation order. It was home to 360 people at the time of the accident.

In June, government-led decontamination work was completed in this strip. Since the summer, residents have been allowed to stay in their homes for more than a month to prepare for their eventual permanent return.

In a 2012 survey, 6.7 percent of Tamura residents said they wanted to return to their homes and 34.5 percent said they wanted to return if some conditions were met.

In the five of six other municipalities, 20 to 40 percent of residents responded in a similar manner. Three of the municipalities are considering lifting evacuation orders as early as this spring.

Why this is important

Mari is facing charges stemming from speaking out on radiation in Japan and advocacy for families relocating children out of the areas contaminated by radioactivity from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactor site, operated by TEPCO. Radioactivity continues to leave that site. It is well established that while lower levels of exposure to radioactivity lowers risk, the greatest hazard from radiation comes when children are exposed, raising the risk of cancer manifold over their entire lives.

The group ETHOS in Japan supports the decision by some to stay and live in contaminated areas. Sadly, some of these families feel they have no choice due to economics and other factors. Certainly young children have no choice. ETHOS advocates monitoring radioactivity, but well established science supports Mari's views that there is no safe dose of radiation and that children need to be protected. We support open discussion, access to information and free choice. We ask the Prosecutor to agree that writing and speaking about these issues are not a crime.

Please Stand With Mari as she stands for precaution, protection and the rights of children to a healthy future. THANK YOU.

Radiation makes people invisible. We know that exposure to radiation can be deleterious to one’s health; can cause sickness or even death when received in high doses. But it does more. People who have been exposed to radiation, or even those who suspect that they have been exposed to radiation that never experience radiation related illnesses may find that their lives are forever changed – that they have assumed a kind of second class citizenship. They may find that their relationship to their families, to their communities, to their hometowns, to their traditional diets and even traditional knowledge systems have become broken. They often spend the remainder of their lives wishing that they could go back, that things would become normal. They slowly realize that they have become expendable and that their government and even their society is no longer invested in their wellbeing.

As a historian of the social and cultural aspects of nuclear technologies I have spent years working in radiation-affected communities around the world. Many of these people have experienced exposure to radiation from nuclear weapon testing, from nuclear weapon production, from nuclear power plant accidents, from nuclear power production or storage, or, like the people in the community that I live, in Hiroshima, from being subjected to direct nuclear attack. For the last five years I have been working with Dr. Mick Broderick of Murdoch University in Perth, Australia on the Global Hibakusha Project. We have been working in radiation-affected communities all around the world. In our research we have found a powerful continuity to the experience of radiation exposure across a broad range of cultures, geographies, and populations. About half way between beginning this study and this present moment the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi happened here in Japan. One of the most distressing things (among so many) since this crisis began is to hear so many people, often people in positions of political power and influence say that the future for those affected by the nuclear disaster is uncertain. I wish that it were so, but there is actually a deep historical precedence that suggests that the future for the people of Tohoku is predictable.

In this short article I will outline some continuities to the experiences of radiation-affected people. Most of the following is also true for people who merely suspect that they have been exposed to radiation, even if they never suffer any health effects. Many have already become a part of the experiences of those affected by the Fukushima disaster. There are, of course, many differences and specificities to each community, but there is also much continuity.

Sickness and mortality– Sickness and even death are the results of exposure to radiation that people expect. It is important to know that there are many different ways that people can become ill after exposure to radiation. When people are exposed to high levels of gamma radiation they can suffer from acute radiation sickness and death can come in a matter of days, weeks or months. Tens of thousands of people died of acute radiation sickness in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they survived the nuclear attacks. A nuclear weapon gives off a very large burst of gamma radiation that only lasts a very short time, but if the whole body is exposed to high levels it can cause illness and death relatively quickly.

For those who were not close to the detonation of a nuclear weapon, or within a short distance of a disaster like the Chernobyl or Fukushima disasters, illness is often the result of internalized alpha emitting particles. With nuclear detonations this comes down as “fallout.” In the case of Chernobyl and Fukushima these came down over large areas as the plumes of the explosions there settled back to Earth. Alpha emitting particles cannot penetrate the skin like gamma radiation can, but rather are internalized through inhalation or swallowing or through cuts in the skin.

These particles don’t give off a large amount of radiation, but if they lodge in the body they continue to expose a small number of cells 24 hours a day often for the rest of a person’s life. This can result in cancers and immune disorders that develop later in life, sometimes a few years, sometimes after one or several decades. Since the plumes of the three explosions at Fukushima deposited large amounts of alpha emitters across a large area, this is the primary danger to those living in the contaminated areas. It is disingenuous when nuclear industry apologists say things like “no one died at Fukushima” since they are well aware that for most of the people who will eventually get sick this process will take time. We are currently in the latency period for these illnesses, a point not missed by nuclear industry PR people.

Losses of homes, community and identity– Areas that experience radioactive contamination often have to be abandoned by those who live there. The levels of radiation may be high enough that continued habitation can be dangerous to health. In these cases people lose their homes; often traditional homes that may have been the primary residences for a family for multiple generations. In these cases one’s identity may be deeply connected to the home and the land around the home.

For communities that have to be abandoned the bonds that have been built up and that sustain the wellbeing of the community are disintegrated. Friends are separated, extended families are often separated, and schools are closed. People who have lived in the same place all of their lives have to make a fresh start, sometimes in old age, sometimes as children, and lose the communal structures that have supported them: shopkeepers who know them, neighbors who can be relied on, the simple familiarity that we have by being known and knowing our way around.

What is lost when a person is no longer able to eat an apple from a tree planted by their parent or grandparent? With the loss of community many people lose their way of making a living. This is especially true in less industrialized places where many people have been farmers or fishers or herders for generations. When someone who has only known farming is taken from the land they have tended, when someone who is a fisher can no longer fish in areas where they understand the natural rhythms and habits of the fish, it can be impossible to start over. Often such people are forced to enter service positions or become dependent on state subsidies, which further erodes their sense of self and wellbeing. Usually, those removed from their land because of contamination are placed into temporary housing. In almost all cases this housing is not temporary, but becomes permanent. Since it is initially intended to be temporary housing it is often very shoddy and cramped.

It can become impossible for multigenerational families that have been living together for decades to remain together. This can remove care for the elderly, childcare for young families and further erodes to continuity of family identity, knowledge and support. Removal from land also is accompanied by the loss of a traditional diet. Those without access to the lands and seas that have provided food for their families for generations often begin a journey of ill health fostered by a new diet composed of processed foods. In some communities such as the small villages around the former Soviet nuclear test site in Kazakhstan the people simply continue to live in dangerously contaminated homes. The state responsible for their exposures no longer exists and no government feels the responsibility to evacuate them. They live very traditional lives and most of their food is from their own gardens and from livestock raised on their contaminated land. Many of the long-lived radionuclides simply cycle through this ecosystem and those living here can be contaminated and recontaminated over many generations.

I’ve flown half way round the world and back during the past week and a half. I’ve crisscrossed the Arabian Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve been within spitting distance of the equator and seen the snow-covered landscape of Greenland!
All my raw results are posted below. You be the scientist. Can you make any conclusions of your own? Does changing altitude make much of a difference at the equator? Does it make a difference over Greenland? What’s the average dose at 41,000′ down south? How about up north? What’s the dosage rate over Europe?Riyadh to Maldives:Maldives to Riyadh:Riyadh to Paris:London to Detroit:
I’ve flown over Greenland many times, but it’s always either been covered in cloud or too dark to see. I got lucky on this flight and captured these pictures at high noon. Notice how long the shadows are, even two months past the winter solstice? These shots are at 62 degrees North latitude.
The depth of the snow in the picture above must be thousands of feet deep. It fills in the valleys completely, leaving the craggy mountain peaks poking out like they were pine trees on an upper mountain slope.
Below is a gigantic glacier, ending in the frozen ocean.Detroit to Greenville:Greenville to London:
How much fuel does it take to fly from South Carolina to London? About a truck and a half worth!London To Riyadh:

It could be weeks before workers can safely access the underground dump to determine what happened. The release of radiation from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant poses no public health threat, officials emphasized (right......), but the state environment secretary said he was concerned with the lag in getting information about the incident.

The Energy Department on Saturday announced that it had shut down operations in response to an underground radiation sensor. But it wasn't until Wednesday night that the department confirmed that ****radiation had also been released above ground****

Remember: Despite what the Nuclear loving Department of Energy paid off MIT to say, NO DOSE OF RADIATION IS SAFE

"A study published by the United States government reports the 'discovery' that low dose radiation is SO SAFE that evacuations from future nuclear disasters may be unnecessary...The public could be allowed to live in the fallout zones spared from the inconvenience of relocation and compensation for damages. While the monetary savings for the nuclear industry would be enormous, does this study actual support repeal of current evacuation policies? In this video we'll observe that this study is contradicted by extensive preexisting high quality studies and we'll learn too that MIT has a very pronuclear agenda to support. Watch this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8YFe6Q08M8&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLcp63Rw5m_QcohHCu3jEFSFuEF4Va2HHh

And it wasn't until a Thursday news conference that Jose Franco, manager of the DOE's Carlsbad Field Office, confirmed publicly that readings from the monitors matched materials from the waste that is stored there, indicating a leak.

Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn said he traveled to Carlsbad as soon as he was told Wednesday night that radiation had been picked up by an above-ground air sensor.

"We are wondering why it took a couple of days to confirm the radiological event outside of the underground," Mr. Flynn said. "We will demand that federal officials share information with the public in real time. That's the reason we are here."

The DOE has appointed a team to investigate the leak at the plant. It was the second incident in just a matter of weeks. Earlier this month, a truck hauling salt below ground caught fire, shutting operations for a few days. Officials haven't said what caused the truck fire, but Mr. Franco said it was unlikely the events were related. He also said there was no evidence of a seismic event at the site.

****WIPP is the nation's first underground nuclear repository. Each week it receives 17 to 19 shipments of low-grade nuclear waste like plutonium-contaminated clothing and tools from Los Alamos National Laboratory and other federal nuclear sites around the country.***** Those shipments have been halted indefinitely, which could impact the ability of Los Alamos to meet a state deadline this year for removing thousands of barrels of waste that currently are stored outside on its northern New Mexico compound.

And it is not just nuclear sites around our country either...the shipments were coming in from all kinds of other places.....

http://krqe.com/2014/02/20/officials-upset-over-airborne-radiation/ DELAY IN NOTIFYING THE PUBLIC:
The pronuclear DOE says the delay in notification was caused by tests that had to be done to the samples to confirm that they were from the WIPP leak, and not naturally occurring radiation (what a stupid excuse!!!!..they know what natural background levels are!! They probably didn't want anyone pulling out their personal gieger counters until some of it had blown downwind--congratulations everyone downwind from New Mexico!!!).

No one has gone below the surface since the event, so officials can only hypothesize about what happened.

Drums of low level waste are piled up in stacks underground and one of the working theories right now is that a big slab of the roof broke free, hit the stack, knocked some drums off and smashed and opened one or more of them.

While that is what happens after storage shafts are permanently sealed, that is not supposed to happen in areas being actively worked by crews. It appears the leak occurred in an active work area while no one was in the underground.

The DOE says it will be at least two or three weeks before crews try to re-enter WIPP and that will only be when they can do so safely.

"A grim "Of Special Importance" (highest classification level) report prepared by the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation (ROSATOM) circulating in the Kremlin warned that the "potentially catastrophic nuclear event" currently unfolding at the US atomic Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico has prompted the White House to begin pre-staging government forces and equipment in the event a large-scale evacuation is needed. According to this report, the United States Department of Energy WIPP is the world's third deep geological repository (after closure of Germany's Repository for radioactive waste Morsleben and the Schacht Asse II Salt Mine) licensed to permanently dispose of transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years that is left from the research and production of nuclear weapons, Whatdoesitmean.com reported. A "highly significant" portion of the nuclear waste being stored at the WIPP, this report continues, was the result of the recently completed 1993 HEU Purchase Agreement between the United States and Russia that saw 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from nuclear weapons down blended into low-enriched uranium and then sent to America where it was made into fuel for nuclear power plants, and of which US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz stated, "For two decades, one in 10 light bulbs in America has been powered by nuclear material from Russian nuclear warheads."

Critical to note, however, this report says, is that the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), the private American corporation serving as executive agent for the HEU Purchase Agreement, was "deliberately targeted" for elimination by the Obama administration in early 2009 leading to its 16 December 2013 announcement that it had reached an agreement with a majority of its debt holders to file a prearranged and voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring in the first quarter of 2014. Federal Security Service (FSB) intelligence experts contributing to this report say the US wanted to eliminate USEC to divert HEU Purchase Agreement uranium for the purpose of reconstituting it to its highly dangerous U-235 level to conduct experiments at the WIPP on what is called nuclear salt-water rockets (NSWR), which is a proposed type of nuclear thermal rocket designed by Robert Zubrin that would be fueled by water bearing dissolved salts of plutonium or U-235. Under tight strictures put upon it by US law, this report says, the White House needed Russia’s HEU Purchase Agreement uranium for these NSWR experiments and which is not reportable. On 5 February, however, this report continues, these NSWR experiments at the WIPP went "horrifically wrong" leading to an explosion and fire at the underground facility, followed by the 14 February "radiological event" that prompted its full evacuation. Of the greatest concern to Russian nuclear experts, this report says, is the US conducting these NSWR experiments at the WIPP facility in the first place as nearly the entire Carlsbad, New Mexico region is in danger of collapsing due to the massive sink holes appearing over these areas vast underground salt domes. (See CNN video news report below)"